


Of Timelines and Dopplegangers and Dreams

by HathorAroha



Category: Life Is Strange 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Dreaming, Dreams, Gen, Lone Wolf Ending (Life is Strange 2), doppelgangers, dreams of other realities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27336439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HathorAroha/pseuds/HathorAroha
Summary: It is 12:43am somwhere in Puerto Lobos, and a lone wolf dreams of a doppelganger healthy and hale, and of timelines that could have been. He'll never wake up again.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	Of Timelines and Dopplegangers and Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [msmooseberry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msmooseberry/gifts).



It is 12:43am, somewhere in Puerto Lobos, when Daniel finds himself deep in a strange dream between worlds. In this dream, he feels his eyes open, and under him is not mattress nor sand, but what feels like a hard wooden floor with splinters that try to edge their way into his fingernails and under his skin. He pushes himself up, feeling mild air on his skin, not cold, not hot. Just right, like the perfect blanket over his body at night. He turns around to survey his surroundings.

There is a mirror with two moons reflecting off its surface, one moon blood red and the other pure white, so white that not even the curious grey and black that usually mottles its face is visible. The mirror hangs over a sink with no plumbing nor wall—it just is there, in the middle of nowhere. Daniel ought to have been puzzled, but as in all dreams, he accepts it as is, like the world really does have two moons that reflect like two heterochromatic irises, watching him as he walks toward the sink. He doesn’t think it odd that it should be impossible that the two moons reflect in the mirror, considering their high position in the sky.

Daniel grabs on to the edge of the sink, fingertips touching cold porcelain, a momentary flashback in a dream to his grandparents, and the comforts that their house had held. Somewhere, somehow, a train whistles in the distance, and he jumps, looking frantically around but there is nothing, not even two lights or the sound of screeching on rails. Nothing but the sand under his feet, a shell fragment stuck between two of his toes. He can feel its sharp edge on his skin, but doesn’t care. He’s had worse.

He turns on a tap, hearing its rusted squeak as he turns it, but no water comes out. He tries the other, and still no water. No sudden splash of water, no sputtering off and on like the water at the old cabin from so long ago, no pathetic little drip-drops like at the first abandoned house he had slept in only days after… _that_ day.

He doesn’t want to look up at the mirror—he always had hated looking in mirrors at night—but he does anyway, and stumbles backward in surprise when he sees not his blonde-dyed hair, the scar under his left eye, nor the teardrop tattooed at the corner of his right eye. He’s not wearing his black tank-top nor the gold chain around his neck, nor has he got a single tattoo.

The man in the mirror is him, but at the same time, is _not_ him.

_What the hell…_

Daniel lifts a hand, and the man in the mirror does the same; when he turns his head to one side, his reflection also does. He lifts his other hand to his own face, feels for the raised scar under his eye—it’s still there. He looks down to see he’s still wearing the same tank top, and not the maroon t-shirt his reflection wears. The gold chain is still there too, dangling around his neck. He can’t really see his hair, but he guesses it’s still the same blonde, and not the natural dark brown it really is. This reflection really is his polar opposite: there’s no scar under his left eye, no teardrop tattoo at the corner of his other eye, and he looks so much like Sean that it fucking hurts.

He presses a hand up to the mirror’s cool pane, his reflection doing the same—and his palm meets the mirror’s hard surface, and not the warm skin he was expecting.

_How…how is that me?_

Without warning, the mirror _explodes_ , Daniel instinctively raising an arm to protect his face from the shards, his other hand still left in mid-air, where it had once been pressing against the mirror. When the commotion dies down, he opens his eyes again, squinting against the moonlight—he sees that the red moon has disappeared—and flinches when he sees a full grown man exactly his height and build standing just a few feet away from him.

“What do you want?!” Daniel demands. “Why are you here?”

Silence. Instead, the figure extends an arm, pointing behind him, and Daniel squints again into the distance until he sees a huge wall in the distance—he doesn’t need moonlight to know that it’s _that_ wall. The accursed wall where he had killed his brother. He doesn’t _want_ to go, but his body ignores his brain’s feverish pleas not to go there, because he’ll see Sean _dead_ again, he’ll hear him choking on his own blood again, and watch helplessly as he dies again.

He goes anyway, to the border, making a beeline to the car—to his mom’s old car. He knows what he’s going to find there, he knows he’ll see Sean again, and he doesn’t want to relive it like this. He wishes he could just _stop_ himself, turn away, _run_ away, just go anywhere but _there._ He knows what he’ll see and he doesn’t want to see it, but he’s close enough now to the still car that he can see figures sitting inside, he can see their bags on the back seats, he can see—

And when he’s close enough to see Sean, he sees he’s still alive, not choking on his own blood, hands at his throat, desperately trying to hold on to life, and failing. Instead, he is sitting so still he might well have been frozen in time, as is—on closer inspection—his ten-year-old self. They don’t move at all, even though distinct echoes of speech swirl around his head like a particularly persistent bee that won’t leave him alone.

“ _So…how does the story of the wolf brothers end?_ ”

Daniel’s heart nearly stops—he remembers having asked that exact same question so long ago. He’d wanted them to cross the border, to make it to the other side, not just…give up right when they were at the border. They were literally just _metres_ away from victory! Why the hell would anyone want to surrender?

“ _But—but I could—_ “

A beat of silence.

“ _I get it. It’s not who we are_.”

What?

It’s exactly who they are! They would’ve done _anything_ to get to the other side, no matter the cost!

…right?

That was right, wasn’t it?

“ _…we’re just kids. And we still have time to choose the life we want to live…_ ”

What life? Daniel had no life anymore. He had nothing to live for. Nothing.

_“You’re my brother…and I love you.”_

_“I love you too, Sean.”_

_“Everything’s going to be alright. I promise.”_

Goosebumps leap on Daniel’s arms. He’d made that exact same promise, but he had failed to keep it. Just like he failed at everything. Sean deserved a better brother than him. If only he hadn’t been born, then Sean would be still alive.

The scene jumps—now the car doors are open, now he sees the frozen figure of Sean near a police car, and his ten-year-old self frozen in a stance of desperation, of wanting to go to his brother, wanting to spend just one more minute with him.

_“Sean! Sean! No!”_

_“Daniel! You’re not a little wolf anymore! Never forget who you are!”_

Then the FBI woman is there, holding on to Daniel, holding him back, and a comforting hand at the side of his head.

_“He’ll be fine…”_

It jumps again, and he’s no longer at the border, but—of all places—in the woods. Or at least, he’s standing at the entrance of the trail he and Sean had travelled, the old trail blaze faded and cracked with the passage of time. Somehow, he’s not sure how he knows, but he knows that many, many years have passed—Sean looks so much older and wearier, with a white glass eye and a full beard. Then there’s an older version of himself, standing next to Sean, looking somewhat apprehensive, but ready for an adventure nevertheless.

Near one of the old billboards, that reflection of himself, the one with the brown hair and healthy complexion, stands still, watching him; he gestures at Daniel to come over.

“Why?” he asks.

No answer, except the gesture.

So Daniel walks in his direction, and stops a few feet away. The figure raises a hand to make Daniel halt where he is, and slips another hand into his pocket, pulling out three photos, holding them up so he sees what they portray. The first is of him visiting Sean in prison—there is even a date underneath: 15 Aug 2018—his brother’s birthday. The second is of Daniel and Chris in the treehouse, holding a board with a drawing of a wolf’s head. The third is what makes his heart ache most: he is in a graduation cap and gown, a high school diploma in his hand, his arms around his aging grandparents. He even has a little stubble on his jaw, a hint of a beard on his chin. But it’s not the grandparents nor the hat and gown nor the high school diploma, nor even the beard that makes his heart ache—it’s, of all things, his smile—it looks so... _natural_ and happy.

_Is that…me? How could I ever smile like that when I killed Sean?_

No. He could never imagine a world where he would be this happy, where he could be this happy. Not in a world where Sean is no longer here with him. No way.

It’s not him. It’s someone else who looks like him, who smiles like him, who has the same face as him, but It’s not him. It could never be him.

“That’s not me,” Daniel tells the figure—his doppelgänger, he supposes, “Never. It’s impossible.”

His doppelgänger lets the photos fall from his hand, but does not take his gaze from him. No sooner do the photos touch the dirt path of the trail, then the woods disappear just like that, replaced by the border wall, and he’s back again by the car, everything frozen in time.

_What now?_

Again, he walks toward the car, seeing its occupants frozen in time—will it be a repeat of what he had just seen? Or is it going to be something else? He catches a glimpse of the moon—there’s only one moon now—blood red, so much that the stars around it seem to be dripping in its scarlet hue. The mottles of grey and black stand stark against the deep red.

Again, he stops a few feet away from the car, seeing the occupants frozen in time, as before. But this time the dialogue is different.

_“So…how does the story of the wolf brothers end?”_

_“They make it to the other side.”_

They _had_ made it to the other side. But…

But Sean…

Because of him. It was his fault.

_“Be careful.”_

The moon above swamps the surroundings in blood red, the scene before him jumping so that now his ten-year-old self stands in front of the car, a shield blocking a thousand bullets, his power tornadoing around his feet. A hundred images, moving so fast everything appears to move like in a movie, of him blasting away cops, police cars, and the gate in the distance, freeing the way to Mexico. Then the car, the destruction, and his ten-year-old self disappear, replaced by soaking sunshine, hot sand, and lapping waves.

He turns from the ocean to look behind him—and sees himself and Sean reclining on the veranda of their dad’s old home, beers in hand, and looking quite relaxed. Sean looks healthy and well, as does himself in this other reality. And there, standing several feet away, is his doppelgänger, all but invisible to the frozen figures reclining in the setting sun. Again, he holds photos in his hands like they are a deal of cards, their blank faces facing Daniel.

“There’s nothing on them?” Daniel asks.

The figure turns the photos around one by one, Daniel leaning in for a closer look. The first is not a photo after all, but a drawing—one of Sean’s drawings—of him playing on what seems like a playbox, his eyes so intense it sends chills up his neck. The second photo is of the abandoned house, now restored to something approaching its former glory, turned into a car repair shop, their last name emblazoned in red letters. The final photo is of the house as it had been before, in ruins, dilapidated, and taken over by gang members and rats.

_We could’ve had it so good, Sean._

He takes another look back at Sean—he’s definitely far healthier than they’d ever been on their harrowing journey, and he has a black glass eye in what used to be that horrible empty eye socket that filled Daniel with guilt every time he’d seen it. He spots the old lighter—their dad’s lighter—in his hand, the lid halfway open. From here, he can see the words _Puerto Lobos_ written on its face, the shield hidden under Sean’s thumb.

His eyes travel to his alternate self enjoying the sun—he too looks so much healthier here, his hair its natural brown, no scars nor tattoos on his skin. Yet, his eyes hold a semblance of what seems to be…regret? Longing? Daniel isn’t sure, but he nevertheless can tell he isn’t completely happy here.

To be honest—

He wasn’t completely happy anyway. Not without Sean, not while knowing he’d killed him.

If only he could be in this dream forever.

The palm trees, the lapping blue ocean, the stunning sunset, the warmth of summer on his skin, the comfort of knowing Sean was never too far away…had that been too much to ask for? Is this what they could’ve had if Sean had not surrendered? Is this the life they could have had, had Sean not given up at the last possible minute?

Daniel wants it to be true.

He wants it so bad to be true it fucking _hurts_.

He wants to stay here a little while longer, enjoy the life they _could’ve_ had—

He doesn’t have time to soak in more of this idyllic scene when it suddenly snaps back to the border, to _that_ day, to _that_ moment of decision. But now Daniel finds himself in the driver’s seat, now he’s Sean, now he’s the one with his hands on the wheel, the one tensing his shoulders, the one staring out of the windscreen at the dozens of police cars and men blocking their way. He hears his brother’s thoughts as true as if they were his own.

_I can’t risk my brother’s life again._

_I can’t rob him of the life he deserves._

_I can’t rip him away from his mom, his grandparents, Chris…_

_Fuck._

_We’re criminals._

_I can’t do this anymore. I want him to be happy._

_I want him to_ live. _Not just…survive._

He wants to surrender—

Wait.

He hadn’t wanted to surrender—

He watches his hands drop from the wheel.

“I think their story ends right here.”

It’s strange to watch himself through Sean’s eyes—seeing how his ten-year-old face darkens in anger, in refusal to accept defeat. He had hated that Sean had broken a promise—hadn’t he promised back in that hotel that he would never lie? Or had he even promised at all, instead said he’d try his best to be honest?

“What?”

It’s weird to hear himself speak.

“But you said—we were going to Mexico! You said—”

Daniel watches in creeping horror, wanting to stop himself, but he can’t because he’s _Sean_ now, he’s about to _surrender_ , he’s about to—

He is helpless to stop himself—stop _Sean_ —turning off the ignition, throwing the keys out of the window.

“It’s over! The end! It’s not who we are.”

_No!_

“Now it’s my turn to take care of us Sean—“

_Stop!_

Are those his thoughts, or are they Sean’s? He can’t tell now.

“Everything will be alright, I promise.”

_NO!_

He flinches as the car door locks, as the window winds back up, as his younger self pushes on the accelerator with his powers, forces the car forward into the hail of bullets.

_NO! Please stop!_

They are as much Sean’s thoughts as they are his own.

The car lurches forward, he is helpless, watching as the border comes closer and closer—

How is it so far away?

They’re going to make it—

They’re not going to make it—

Maybe they’ll make it to the other side after all—

Maybe they _won’t_ make it to the other side after all—

A bullet hits his neck, blood spilling into his lungs—

He can’t breathe—

His hands grasp at his throat, the sticky blood pouring between his fingers, sticking to his palms, staining his hoodie—

They’re going to make it—

“Sean! You see that? Mexico, look!”

He can’t look, he can’t, he closes his one remaining eye because he doesn’t want to look—

He’s dying and—

And they _had_ made it to the other side—

Daniel is alone—

And he hears his screaming, his begging for him not to die—

He opens his eye just enough for a glimpse of that doppelgänger of his, standing still, emotionless.

And then he dies—

He’s gone.

No, _Sean’s_ gone.

But he’s gone too.

He never wakes up.

The mirror smashing—that had been his window smashing as vengeful gang members broke into his home—

The bullet to his neck—

The grasping at his neck in his sleep—

That had been a fatal, point blank shot from a gang member.

He is gone now.

Gone, like Sean.

Gone, forever.

Like Sean.

Daniel dies alone.

It is 12:45am somewhere in Puerto Lobos and a sixteen-year-old boy lies dead in his own blood, murdered by gang members as he slept.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies to "Parting Ways" for being left out. :( I wanted to get you in there, but the story had OTHER ideas. Because that's how stories roll. You *think* you'll have something or go in one direction, and it decides "yeah no, we're doing THIS instead."
> 
> This is a late-to-the-Halloween-party fic inspired by Halloween-themed prompts that @msmooseberry had posted on their Tumblr a while ago. I went with the "doppelganger" (albeit in a dream) prompt here. Go read their stories too--they're all amazing!


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